OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
RT-GAN: Recurrent Temporal GAN for Adding Lightweight Temporal Consistency to Frame-Based Domain Translation Approaches
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2025
Year: 2025

Fourteen million colonoscopies are performed annually just in the U.S. However, the videos from these colonoscopies are not saved due to storage constraints (each video from a high-definition colonoscope camera can be in tens of gigabytes). Instead, a few relevant individual frames are saved for documentation/reporting purposes and these are the frames on which most current colonoscopy AI models are trained on. While developing new unsupervised domain translation methods for colonoscopy (e.g. to translate between real optical and virtual/CT colonoscopy), it is thus typical to start with approaches that initially work for individual frames without temporal consistency. Once an individual-frame model has been finalized, additional contiguous frames are added with a modified deep learning architecture to train a new model from scratch for temporal consistency. This transition to temporally-consistent deep learning models, however, requires significantly more computational and memory resources for training. In this paper, we present a lightweight solution with a tunable temporal parameter, RT-GAN (Recurrent Temporal GAN), for adding temporal consistency to individual frame-based approaches that reduces training requirements by a factor of 5. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on two challenging use cases in colonoscopy: haustral fold segmentation (indicative of missed surface) and realistic colonoscopy simulator video generation. We also release a first-of-its kind temporal dataset for colonoscopy for the above use cases. The datasets, accompanying code, and pretrained models will be made available on our Computational Endoscopy Platform GitHub (https://github.com/nadeemlab/CEP). The supplementary video is available at https://youtu.be/UMVP-uIXwWk.
Node Perturbation Can Effectively Train Multi-Layer Neural Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

Backpropagation (BP) remains the dominant and most successful method for training parameters of deep neural network models. However, BP relies on two computationally distinct phases, does not provide a satisfactory explanation of biological learning, and can be challenging to apply for training of networks with discontinuities or noisy node dynamics. By comparison, node perturbation (NP), also known as activity-perturbed forward gradients, proposes learning by the injection of noise into network activations, and subsequent measurement of the induced loss change. NP relies on two forward (inference) passes, does not make use of network derivatives, and has been proposed as a model for learning in biological systems. However, standard NP is highly data inefficient and can be unstable due to its unguided noise-based search process. In this work, we develop a modern perspective on NP by relating it to the directional derivative and incorporating input decorrelation. We find that a closer alignment with directional derivatives together with input decorrelation at every layer theoretically and practically enhances performance of NP learning with large improvements in parameter convergence and much higher performance on the test data, approaching that of BP. Furthermore, our novel formulation allows for application to noisy systems in which the noise process itself is inaccessible, which is of particular interest for on-chip learning in neuromorphic systems.
Dataset Condensation for Recommendation
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2025
Year: 2025

Training recommendation models on large datasets requires significant time and resources. It is desired to construct concise yet informative datasets for efficient training. Recent advances in dataset condensation show promise in addressing this problem by synthesizing small datasets. However, applying existing methods of dataset condensation to recommendation has limitations: (1) they fail to generate discrete user-item interactions, and (2) they could not preserve users' potential preferences. To address the limitations, we propose a lightweight condensation framework tailored for recommendation (DConRec), focusing on condensing user-item historical interaction sets. Specifically, we model the discrete user-item interactions via a probabilistic approach and design a pre-augmentation module to incorporate the potential preferences of users into the condensed datasets. While the substantial size of datasets leads to costly optimization, we propose a lightweight policy gradient estimation to accelerate the data synthesis. Experimental results on multiple real-world datasets have demonstrated the effectiveness and efficiency of our framework. Besides, we provide a theoretical analysis of the provable convergence of DConRec. Our implementation is available at: https://github.com/JiahaoWuGit/DConRec.
Algebras of actions in an agent's representations of the world
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2025
Year: 2025

In this paper, we propose a framework to extract the algebra of the transformations of worlds from the perspective of an agent. As a starting point, we use our framework to reproduce the symmetry-based representations from the symmetry-based disentangled representation learning (SBDRL) formalism proposed by [1]; only the algebra of transformations of worlds that form groups can be described using symmetry-based representations. We then study the algebras of the transformations of worlds with features that occur in simple reinforcement learning scenarios. Using computational methods, that we developed, we extract the algebras of the transformations of these worlds and classify them according to their properties. Finally, we generalise two important results of SBDRL - the equivariance condition and the disentangling definition - from only working with symmetry-based representations to working with representations capturing the transformation properties of worlds with transformations for any algebra. Finally, we combine our generalised equivariance condition and our generalised disentangling definition to show that disentangled sub-algebras can each have their own individual equivariance conditions, which can be treated independently.
Contraction Properties of the Global Workspace Primitive
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

To push forward the important emerging research field surrounding multi-area recurrent neural networks (RNNs), we expand theoretically and empirically on the provably stable RNNs of RNNs introduced by Kozachkov et al. in "RNNs of RNNs: Recursive Construction of Stable Assemblies of Recurrent Neural Networks". We prove relaxed stability conditions for salient special cases of this architecture, most notably for a global workspace modular structure. We then demonstrate empirical success for Global Workspace Sparse Combo Nets with a small number of trainable parameters, not only through strong overall test performance but also greater resilience to removal of individual subnetworks. These empirical results for the global workspace inter-area topology are contingent on stability preservation, highlighting the relevance of our theoretical work for enabling modular RNN success. Further, by exploring sparsity in the connectivity structure between different subnetwork modules more broadly, we improve the state of the art performance for stable RNNs on benchmark sequence processing tasks, thus underscoring the general utility of specialized graph structures for multi-area RNNs.
Fast algorithm for centralized multi-agent maze exploration
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2025
Year: 2025

Recent advances in robotics have paved the way for robots to replace humans in perilous situations, such as searching for victims in burning buildings, in earthquake-damaged structures, in uncharted caves, traversing minefields or patrolling crime-ridden streets. These challenges can be generalized as problems where agents have to explore unknown mazes. We propose a cooperative multi-agent system of automated mobile agents for exploring unknown mazes and localizing stationary targets. The Heat Equation-Driven Area Coverage (HEDAC) algorithm for maze exploration employs a potential field to guide the exploration of the maze and integrates cooperative behaviors of the agents such as collision avoidance, coverage coordination, and path planning. In contrast to previous applications for continuous static domains, we adapt the HEDAC method for mazes on expanding rectilinear grids. The proposed algorithm guarantees the exploration of the entire maze and can ensure the avoidance of collisions and deadlocks. Moreover, this is the first application of the HEDAC algorithm to domains that expand over time. To cope with the dynamically changing domain, succesive over-relaxation (SOR) iterative linear solver has been adapted and implemented, which significantly reduced the computational complexity of the presented algorithm when compared to standard direct and iterative linear solvers. The results highlight significant improvements and show the applicability of the algorithm in different mazes. They confirm its robustness, adaptability, scalability and simplicity, which enables centralized parallel computation to control multiple agents/robots in the maze.
Efficient Vectorized Backpropagation Algorithms for Training Feedforward Networks Composed of Quadratic Neurons
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2025
Year: 2025

Higher order artificial neurons whose outputs are computed by applying an activation function to a higher order multinomial function of the inputs have been considered in the past, but did not gain acceptance due to the extra parameters and computational cost. However, higher order neurons have significantly greater learning capabilities since the decision boundaries of higher order neurons can be complex surfaces instead of just hyperplanes. The boundary of a single quadratic neuron can be a general hyper-quadric surface allowing it to learn many nonlinearly separable datasets. Since quadratic forms can be represented by symmetric matrices, only $\frac{n(n+1)}{2}$ additional parameters are needed instead of $n^2$. A quadratic Logistic regression model is first presented. Solutions to the XOR problem with a single quadratic neuron are considered. The complete vectorized equations for both forward and backward propagation in feedforward networks composed of quadratic neurons are derived. A reduced parameter quadratic neural network model with just $ n $ additional parameters per neuron that provides a compromise between learning ability and computational cost is presented. Comparison on benchmark classification datasets are used to demonstrate that a final layer of quadratic neurons enables networks to achieve higher accuracy with significantly fewer hidden layer neurons. In particular this paper shows that any dataset composed of $\mathcal{C}$ bounded clusters can be separated with only a single layer of $\mathcal{C}$ quadratic neurons.
LLM-Coordination: Evaluating and Analyzing Multi-agent Coordination Abilities in Large Language Models
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2025
Year: 2025

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated emergent common-sense reasoning and Theory of Mind (ToM) capabilities, making them promising candidates for developing coordination agents. This study introduces the LLM-Coordination Benchmark, a novel benchmark for analyzing LLMs in the context of Pure Coordination Settings, where agents must cooperate to maximize gains. Our benchmark evaluates LLMs through two distinct tasks. The first is Agentic Coordination, where LLMs act as proactive participants in four pure coordination games. The second is Coordination Question Answering (CoordQA), which tests LLMs on 198 multiple-choice questions across these games to evaluate three key abilities: Environment Comprehension, ToM Reasoning, and Joint Planning. Results from Agentic Coordination experiments reveal that LLM-Agents excel in multi-agent coordination settings where decision-making primarily relies on environmental variables but face challenges in scenarios requiring active consideration of partners' beliefs and intentions. The CoordQA experiments further highlight significant room for improvement in LLMs' Theory of Mind reasoning and joint planning capabilities. Zero-Shot Coordination (ZSC) experiments in the Agentic Coordination setting demonstrate that LLM agents, unlike RL methods, exhibit robustness to unseen partners. These findings indicate the potential of LLMs as Agents in pure coordination setups and underscore areas for improvement. Code Available at https://github.com/eric-ai-lab/llm_coordination.
Robust Average Networks for Monte Carlo Denoising
Venue: arXiv cs.GR 2025
Year: 2025

We present a method for converting denoising neural networks from spatial into spatio-temporal ones by modifying the network architecture and loss function. We insert Robust Average blocks at arbitrary depths in the network graph. Each block performs latent space interpolation with trainable weights and works on the sequence of image representations from the preceding spatial components of the network. The temporal connections are kept live during training by forcing the network to predict a denoised frame from subsets of the input sequence. Using temporal coherence for denoising improves image quality and reduces temporal flickering independent of scene or image complexity.
Generating Less Certain Adversarial Examples Improves Robust Generalization
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

This paper revisits the robust overfitting phenomenon of adversarial training. Observing that models with better robust generalization performance are less certain in predicting adversarially generated training inputs, we argue that overconfidence in predicting adversarial examples is a potential cause. Therefore, we hypothesize that generating less certain adversarial examples improves robust generalization, and propose a formal definition of adversarial certainty that captures the variance of the model's predicted logits on adversarial examples. Our theoretical analysis of synthetic distributions characterizes the connection between adversarial certainty and robust generalization. Accordingly, built upon the notion of adversarial certainty, we develop a general method to search for models that can generate training-time adversarial inputs with reduced certainty, while maintaining the model's capability in distinguishing adversarial examples. Extensive experiments on image benchmarks demonstrate that our method effectively learns models with consistently improved robustness and mitigates robust overfitting, confirming the importance of generating less certain adversarial examples for robust generalization. Our implementations are available as open-source code at: https://github.com/TrustMLRG/AdvCertainty.
Findings of the 2023 ML-SUPERB Challenge: Pre-Training and Evaluation over More Languages and Beyond
Venue: arXiv cs.SD 2025
Year: 2025

The 2023 Multilingual Speech Universal Performance Benchmark (ML-SUPERB) Challenge expands upon the acclaimed SUPERB framework, emphasizing self-supervised models in multilingual speech recognition and language identification. The challenge comprises a research track focused on applying ML-SUPERB to specific multilingual subjects, a Challenge Track for model submissions, and a New Language Track where language resource researchers can contribute and evaluate their low-resource language data in the context of the latest progress in multilingual speech recognition. The challenge garnered 12 model submissions and 54 language corpora, resulting in a comprehensive benchmark encompassing 154 languages. The findings indicate that merely scaling models is not the definitive solution for multilingual speech tasks, and a variety of speech/voice types present significant challenges in multilingual speech processing.
"Mango Mango, How to Let The Lettuce Dry Without A Spinner?": Exploring User Perceptions of Using An LLM-Based Conversational Assistant Toward Cooking Partner
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2025
Year: 2025

The rapid advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs) has created numerous potentials for integration with conversational assistants (CAs) assisting people in their daily tasks, particularly due to their extensive flexibility. However, users' real-world experiences interacting with these assistants remain unexplored. In this research, we chose cooking, a complex daily task, as a scenario to explore people's successful and unsatisfactory experiences while receiving assistance from an LLM-based CA, Mango Mango. We discovered that participants value the system's ability to offer customized instructions based on context, provide extensive information beyond the recipe, and assist them in dynamic task planning. However, users expect the system to be more adaptive to oral conversation and provide more suggestive responses to keep them actively involved. Recognizing that users began treating our LLM-CA as a personal assistant or even a partner rather than just a recipe-reading tool, we propose five design considerations for future development.
Lion Secretly Solves Constrained Optimization: As Lyapunov Predicts
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2025
Year: 2025

Lion (Evolved Sign Momentum), a new optimizer discovered through program search, has shown promising results in training large AI models. It performs comparably or favorably to AdamW but with greater memory efficiency. As we can expect from the results of a random search program, Lion incorporates elements from several existing algorithms, including signed momentum, decoupled weight decay, Polak, and Nesterov momentum, but does not fit into any existing category of theoretically grounded optimizers. Thus, even though Lion appears to perform well as a general-purpose optimizer for a wide range of tasks, its theoretical basis remains uncertain. This lack of theoretical clarity limits opportunities to further enhance and expand Lion's efficacy. This work aims to demystify Lion. Based on both continuous-time and discrete-time analysis, we demonstrate that Lion is a theoretically novel and principled approach for minimizing a general loss function $f(x)$ while enforcing a bound constraint $\|x\|_\infty \leq 1/λ$. Lion achieves this through the incorporation of decoupled weight decay, where $λ$ represents the weight decay coefficient. Our analysis is made possible by the development of a new Lyapunov function for the Lion updates. It applies to a broader family of Lion-$κ$ algorithms, where the $\text{sign}(\cdot)$ operator in Lion is replaced by the subgradient of a convex function $κ$, leading to the solution of a general composite optimization problem of $\min_x f(x) + κ^*(x)$. Our findings provide valuable insights into the dynamics of Lion and pave the way for further improvements and extensions of Lion-related algorithms.
On matrix rank function over bounded arithmetics
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2025
Year: 2025

In [Mulmuley, 1987], Mulmuley gave an algorithm reducing the computation of the matrix rank function to that of determinants, of which the proof for the verification is elementary. In this article, we formalize this argument in the bounded arithmetic $LAP$; that is, we show that \[\det(AB)=\det(A)\det(B)\] for matrices $A,B$ with $mathbb{F}(X)$-coefficients implies \[rank(M)=dim(im M),\] where $\mathbb{F}$ is the universe of the field-sort of the theory, $M$ is a matrix with $\mathbb{F}$-coefficients, and $rank(M)$ is the rank function computed by Mulmuley's algorithm. Furthermore, interpreting $LAP$ by $VNC^{2}$ with $\mathbb{F}=\mathbb{Q}$ and using the result of [Tzameret \& Cook, 2021], we see that $VNC^{2}$ can formalize $rank(M)$ and prove $rank(M)=dim(im M)$. Lastly, we give several examples of combinatorial statements provable in $VNC^{2}$, using the formalized linear algebra.
Efficient Multi-robot Active SLAM
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2025
Year: 2025

Autonomous exploration in unknown environments remains a fundamental challenge in robotics, particularly for applications such as search and rescue, industrial inspection, and planetary exploration. Multi-robot active SLAM presents a promising solution by enabling collaborative mapping and exploration while actively reducing uncertainty. However, existing approaches often suffer from high computational costs and inefficient frontier management, making them computationally expensive for real-time applications. In this paper, we introduce an efficient multi-robot active SLAM framework that incorporates a frontier-sharing strategy to enhance robot distribution in unexplored environments. Our approach integrates a utility function that considers both pose graph uncertainty and path entropy, achieving an optimal balance between exploration coverage and computational efficiency. By filtering and prioritizing goal frontiers, our method significantly reduces computational overhead while preserving high mapping accuracy. The proposed framework has been implemented in ROS and validated through simulations and real-world experiments. Results demonstrate superior exploration performance and mapping quality compared to state-of-the-art approaches.
Case Law Grounding: Using Precedents to Align Decision-Making for Humans and AI
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2025
Year: 2025

From moderating content within an online community to producing socially-appropriate generative outputs, decision-making tasks -- conducted by either humans or AI -- often depend on subjective or socially-established criteria. To ensure such decisions are consistent, prevailing processes primarily make use of high-level rules and guidelines to ground decisions, similar to applying "constitutions" in the legal context. However, inconsistencies in specifying and interpreting constitutional grounding can lead to undesirable and even incorrect decisions being made. In this work, we introduce "case law grounding" (CLG) -- an approach for grounding subjective decision-making using past decisions, similar to how precedents are used in case law. We present how this grounding approach can be implemented in both human and AI decision-making contexts, introducing both a human-led process and a large language model (LLM) prompting setup. Evaluating with five groups and communities across two decision-making task domains, we find that decisions produced with CLG were significantly more accurately aligned to ground truth in 4 out of 5 groups, achieving a 16.0--23.3 %-points higher accuracy in the human process, and 20.8--32.9 %-points higher with LLMs. We also examined the impact of different configurations with the retrieval window size and binding nature of decisions and find that binding decisions and larger retrieval windows were beneficial. Finally, we discuss the broader implications of using CLG to augment existing constitutional grounding when it comes to aligning human and AI decisions.
Diffusion Models for Wireless Communications
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2025
Year: 2025

A comprehensive study on the applications of denoising diffusion models for wireless systems is provided. The article highlights the capabilities of diffusion models in learning complicated signal distributions, modeling wireless channels, and denoising and reconstructing distorted signals. First, fundamental working mechanism of diffusion models is introduced. Then the recent advances in applying diffusion models to wireless systems are reviewed. Next, two case studies are provided, where conditional diffusion models (CDiff) are proposed for data reconstruction enhancement, covering both the conventional digital communication systems, as well as the semantic communication (SemCom) setups. The first case study highlights about 10 dB improvement in data reconstruction under low-SNR regimes, while mitigating the need to transmit redundant bits for error correction codes in digital systems. The second study further extends the case to a SemCom setup, where diffusion autoencoders showcase superior performance compared to legacy autoencoders and variational autoencoder (VAE) architectures. Finally, future directions and existing challenges are discussed.